The Fine Line Between
by Cutter
Summary: Hisoka ponders the nature of partnership.


Disclaimers: The _Yami no Matsuei_ characters and storyline belong to Youko Matsushita. I'm not making a red cent off of 'em, and I figure what I put 'em through is child's play compared to what they get in the canon.  
Notes: You would not believe how long I spent researching whether Hisoka called Wakaba by her first name or not. Turns out my instincts (or my latent memories) were spot-on. Unlikely as that may sound. [grins] He doesn't really call Yuma and Saya anything (too busy running), so I went completely with my instincts there.

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The Fine Line Between  
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"I know what love feels like."  
  
Kumao regarded him in mute sympathy.   
  
"I'm an empath," Hisoka continued to argue, "I know what everything feels like." It was true. He'd felt more different loves before his coming of age than any one person does in a lifetime, maybe. And a dozen other things that were close--friendship, longing, respect. He'd even told Tsuzuki once that it was hard to differentiate between 'admiration' and 'love.' That his partner loved that dancer and just wasn't calling it by the right name.  
  
Kumao remained silent, and Hisoka looked away, feeling stupid.  
  
The problem, he decided, was that even Kumao reminded him of Tsuzuki.  
  
_No, let's be realistic. Shouldn't the problem be that I'm talking to him in the first place?_ He felt his temper suddenly flare, and he flung Kumao away from him, storming into the kitchen and beginning to throw together a soup. Pots banged with unnecessary force, ringing throughout the still apartment.  
  
Perhaps that was why he'd been driven to the extreme of pouring his heart out to a stuffed animal; it was just so quiet here. Maybe he'd wanted to hear a human voice.  
  
Ch'. When had he started needing _that_? Tsuzuki's noisiness was having an effect on him.  
  
If it weren't for his partner, he wouldn't even _have_ the stupid bear. It wasn't like he was some kid or something. He'd never had a teddy bear, and he didn't want one. But of course Tsuzuki had just _had_ to play all the games at the Hotaru festival, and then he'd insisted on trying over and over until he finally won a prize, never mind that in the end it cost him more than it would have to just buy a stuffed animal from the store. Or that they were supposed to be on assignment.  
  
Idiot.  
  
But then, when Hisoka had impatiently suggested that they get on with it, his partner had turned to him with that excited puppy-dog face and said, "Now, what should his name be?"  
  
"How should I know?" Hisoka had replied, surprised. "It doesn't need a name. It's a carnival bear that you're going to lose in ten minutes anyway."  
  
Tsuzuki was affronted. "Hey, don't insult him! This is a very important bear! C'mon, think of a name. A really good one. C'mon, c'mon, c'mooooooon. . . ."  
  
Eventually, Hisoka gave in just to get him to shut up. ". . .Kumao."  
  
There was an incredulous silence.  
  
". . .you don't by any chance mean 'Kumao' as in the kanji for 'bear' and 'man,' do you?"  
  
One eyebrow raised, as if to challenge the older Shinigami to comment.  
  
"Hisokaaaaaaaaa! That's a _boring_ name!"  
  
"You want a creative name, then think of it yourself, old man." Hisoka spun on his heel and began walking in the direction of the stands selling yakisoba and sembei. Maybe he'd find this girl by himself.  
  
Tsuzuki's emotions had wavered a little bit then, and then he'd come running to catch up, smiling, one hand behind his neck in a conciliatory pose. "Ok, ok, Kumao it is! Kumao's a fine name for a bear!"  
  
And Hisoka had found the toy suddenly thrust into his arms. "Keep it," Tsuzuki had told him. "You need something like this!"  
  
He'd spluttered and argued, not sure how insulted to be, but in the end they had been distracted by sighting the girl and somehow the damn thing had come home with him.   
  
And now, it had taken up permanent residence. Hisoka sighed and walked back to the living area, scooping up Kumao from where he had been thrown and depositing him on the table. Then he took the soup off the stove and sat down with his dinner. It was hot enough to burn his mouth a little.  
  
Things hadn't always been like this. He'd ignored the bear like he'd ignored Tsuzuki's attempts to convince him he needed it; like he ignored everything. He'd eaten his soup and read his books and slept his fitful sleep. This habit of confession, of turning to Kumao for relief from his too-silent house, was new.   
  
When had he sunk so low that he had to turn for comfort to the stuffed animal his partner had given him?  
  
It was the only material object in the house that had an afterglow of Tsuzuki.  
  
He was pathetic.  
  
Hisoka knew what love felt like. The problem was, he wasn't sure he'd ever felt it, as himself and not as the emotional sponge that he had been before JuuOhChou and shielding and the whole new world of Kachou and Tatsumi and Watari and his partner.  
  
And his partner. His partner. . . .  
  
"That's what it is, you know," he whispered to the teddy bear. No matter how pathetic Hisoka thought himself, there was still a little part of him that couldn't resist reaching out, trying to explain. "_Partner_."  
  
Hisoka knew what love felt like by proxy, and what partnership felt like by experience.  
  
And he couldn't tell the difference.  
  
He'd never really been around a set of partners before becoming a Shinigami; in life he'd had no contact with policemen, dancers, people who by definition worked in pairs. Once, before he'd been locked away, he had seen two skaters in the park. . .but he'd always assumed they'd been in love. The way they'd known each other's movements so perfectly, the way they'd taken care of each other with every flex of muscle, extended to keep each other from stumbling--it _looked_ like love. He'd felt it and called it love. But now years later as he watched Terazuma and Kannuki-san, Torii and Fukiya, even Tatsumi and Tsuzuki sometimes, it was that feeling all over again. . .just what was a "partner"? If anyone had asked him to describe the feeling of the pairs of Shinigami he knew, he'd've said they were all married. That's what they felt like; like people who had known each other well, who cared, who had a life's investment. They bickered. They picked the onions off of each other's gyuudon. Even Terazuma had a sort of a sixth sense for when Kannuki-san wanted her teacup refilled.  
  
Like old gloves over old hands.  
  
But it hardly seemed likely that all the partners in JuuOhChou were in love with each other, now did it. Kannuki-san and Terazuma might be a given, but Hisoka seriously doubted that Torii and Fukiya were romantically involved, and even Tatsumi didn't seem in love with his former partner so much as sort of. . .fixated. So where was the line?  
  
Where was the line between _I've got a partner_ and _I'm in love_?  
  
They both needed such intimacy.  
  
He found himself grasping at Kumao, hands running blindly over the flat eyes and button nose. Emotions that he couldn't understand _hurt_ him. They clawed and screamed and demanded to be filtered and he couldn't do it because to filter them he had to process them and to process them he had to know what they were. It was becoming imperative for him to figure this feeling out, this partner-love-something.  
  
Because he was starting to feel it. With Tsuzuki.  
  
"Partner," Hisoka mumbled.   
  
That night like always, it was a hard road into sleep, his thoughts wandering out to all the places he couldn't approach in the daylight.  
  
_I know what you're going to say before you say it. I know what you'll order at a restaurant, where your hands are going to be, the way you move. There are a million things I don't know about you and your past and what you want and it matters but it doesn't at the same time, because when we're together I understand you in a way that's perfect like sand made into glass because you're this one person always with me who makes it his job to understand me who asks and answers and listens and talks and works with me, a well-oiled machine our system and your mind so familiar that sometimes it doesn't even hurt and some people look at us and say you're like my father or I'm like your babysitter or we're like a married couple or we're like brothers and sometimes I think we're almost like lovers, sometimes when you're the only person I can stand to be around that I want to touch that I can trust to stand at my back, my partner partner partner partner--_  
  
He felt like always wanting. He felt like coming apart at the seams of his own frustrating plunge into the feeling world.  
  
All of the rules by which he organized his mind were changing.  
  
Maybe a partner was someone you loved. Maybe a lover was a kind of partner. Maybe they were neighboring territories, and he was walking the fine line between.  
  
In his house in Meifu, the land of the dead, Hisoka lay curled within the walls of a hundred unspoken thoughts. When he slept, he slept a fitful sleep, clutched in his hands polyester fur and the afterglow of his partner.

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And that's a wrap. Comments, criticisms, and well-intentioned abuse are all heartily welcomed, as always. You got ideas, I'd love to hear 'em. ^_~ 


End file.
